The Last Divide
by Avirra
Summary: February 1, 1918 - the wedding day of Alexander Waverly and Millicent Kildare. Millicent has a final encounter with a man who went from being her protector to her tormentor. An expanded version of the 4/6-7 LJ Songfic challenge (the song was the Beatles' song 'For No One').


**The Last Divide**

February 1, 1918. It was a cold, crisp day, but clear and bright. The morning sunlight was streaming through the window and making it difficult for Millicent to look directly at her dress. Not that she had time to be admiring it presently. She was making slight changes to her makeup while her best friend and maid of honor, Ermengarde, was fussing with her veil. When she heard the sound of the door opening, she assumed it was Lady Anne, whose guardianship of her was ending this day. The voice that came next however was both familiar and masculine.

"White. Obviously not wearing your mother's wedding dress."

Her blue eyes went frosty as Millicent turned to gaze at her former guardian. They had not parted on the best of terms.

"Obviously as my mother never married. I'll thank you not to degrade my mother's memory. She never pretended to be anything she was not."

"I didn't intend it that way. I was very fond of your mother."

Ermengarde murmured something about going to get the bouquet ready and left the room hurriedly. It didn't seem the time to mince words and Millicent went straight to the point.

"Why are you here?"

"To see you. You look beautiful. White lace suits you."

Her spine stiffened at that remark and the blue eyes shifted from frosty to glacial.

"I would appreciate it if you would not say such things to me. You should not be here. You most especially should not be in my room, today of all days."

"You refused to meet me anywhere else."

"You know very well why."

That statement apparently hit the mark as Lord William began to fumble awkwardly with the top hat in his hands. It took him several long moments to respond to her.

"Your mother asked me to watch over you."

The tone of which he referred to her mother was warmer, but did nothing to lessen the ice in Millicent's voice.

"She did, but I doubt she would have approved of the method you tried to employ."

"I know you have feelings for me."

"Had. Had feelings - and yes, affection for you. But as a niece towards an uncle."

He didn't realize it, but she had actually been trying to be kind in her wording - the man was of age to be more her grandfather than her uncle. His plans to control her inheritance from her mother to the point that she would have to choose between being destitute and marrying him had removed all respect and fondness she had held for him as a child. Millicent supposed the time had come to spell that out to him.

"Your actions toward me killed even that. I deserved better at your hands than to have been treated as a possession. If I have any of the gentler feelings remaining toward you, they are pity."

The word pity ignited a fire in the older man.

"Pity? You insolent child! You are foolish to be running off with that Waverly boy."

Now even the pity died. Alexander was far from a boy and had come near to losing his very life during the war.

"I am no longer a child and you are no longer my guardian. Nor am I running off with a boy. I am marrying a man."

"An unknown clerk with few prospects. Less if I withdraw my support."

"I fancy your support does not hold the weight that it did before the war. Alexander's name is known well-enough in the places that count and will be better known in the future."

Her disdain stung all the more because of the truth behind it. People had once sought him out for favors, but during the war years, he had made several decisions that turned out to be ill-conceived. He was no longer invited to confer with the new generation of movers and shakers, but the fact that this woman-child would know that even in far-off Switzerland? He drew his pride around him like a cloak and spoke haughtily to her.

"I wouldn't be so sure of that. You still need me."

He felt those cold blue eyes sizing him up - and finding him utterly lacking. What cut deepest was her tone as she spoke again. It was the tone that a nanny would have used on a willful child to explain why things are not as he thought they were.

"No. I do not. I am not that twelve year old motherless girl I was six years ago. I do not need you. I do not love you."

The door opened again and Millicent gave silent thanks as she saw Ermengarde had left not to fetch the flowers, but to fetch Lady Anne. On seeing her, Lord William visibly wilted. He was not about to pit himself in any contest with one of the Queen's formidable ladies-in-waiting.

"I see you are determined to go off and make a fool of yourself. I am leaving now. You will one day rue this decision, Millicent."

"No, Lord William - I do not believe that I shall."

Millicent turned back to the mirror as he left and surprised herself to see the beginnings of tears in her eyes. He had been the closest thing to a male relative in her life growing up. She supposed the tears were for this last divide. He did not wish to be what she needed - she could not be what he wanted and she doubted they would ever meet again.

She blotted the tears away with an economy of movement and repaired the small damage to her makeup. Ermengarde began to fuss with her veil again and the glacial ice melted back down to spring rain as a smile touched Millicent's lips again. In an hour, she would walk down the aisle and put her past firmly behind her.

A wry smile formed as she considered a saying her mother had once said - one could not choose one's relatives. You could. She already had. Alexander was all the family she would have now. And that suited her just fine.


End file.
